Long wait for jurors in murder trial

WEST CHESTER— The 125 prospective jurors in the criminal case against Eric “Stroda” Coxry spent their time Monday at the Chester County Justice Center getting welcomed to the courthouse by the presiding judge, and waiting. And filling out juror questionnaires, and waiting. And getting lunch, and waiting.

And waiting some more.

It was not until the men and women, 16 of who will be chosen as the 12 jurors and four alternates who will hear the evidence against Coxry, had spent almost six hours in and around the courthouse that they made their way to a courtroom to begin the process known as voir dire. And even then, they mostly waited.

What they were waiting for, whether they knew it or not, was to be questioned individually by the attorneys for the prosecution and defense as to whether they could sit on the jury and fairly determine whether or not they could impose the death penalty on Coxry if he is convicted of the first-degree murder charge he faces, or whether they would be able take into account things in his background that would lead them to believe he would be better sentenced to life in prison.

The answer to those questions will be delivered over the next few days as Judge David Bortner presides over the jury selection process Testimony in the murder case is expected to begin after the panel of 16 is chosen.

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Coxry, 35, of Philadelphia sat at the defense table flanked by his three attorneys, dressed in a blue dress shirt and sporting a faint mustache and goatee beard.

He is charged with being the gunman in a murder for hire that claimed the life of Coatesville barbershop owner Jonas “Sonny” Suber in October 2006. The murder was allegedly committed at the behest of Coatesville crime figure Duron “Gotti” Peoples and engineered by Peoples associate, Shamone “Kadoff” Woods.

Peoples and Suber and their family, friends, and associates had been at war for several months stemming from Suber’s dalliance with Peoples’ then-girlfriend. Several shootings, including one other murder, had occurred in the months leading up to Suber’s death.

The prosecution contends that Coxry, who was friendly with Woods, came to the city on Oct. 20, 2006, and met with Woods at a crack house on East Lincoln Highway. There, they allegedly discussed the murder, and later that night tailed Suber in his white Cadillac as he visited two city nightspots on his way home to a house in the 400 block of Walnut Street.

On Oct. 21, 2006, Suber woke up to hear someone knocking at his front door. When he opened it, a man emptied a .45-caliber handgun into his abdomen and left him to die on the front staircase of the home he shared with his wife, Bashera Grove.

Grove and another woman later identified Coxry as the gunman.

The prospective jurors each filled out a 16-page questionnaire that asked them about their knowledge of the case but also their attitudes towards trials and crime.The attorneys for both sides will use those answers as the basis for their follow up questions in individual voir dire to see whether they should serve on the jury.

Death penalty certified juries are rare in Chester County, but this is second in less than 12 months. In October, a jury was chosen to hear the case against Laquanta Chapman, a Coatesville man accused of the 2010 murder and dismemberment of a city teenager. He was found guilty of first-degree murder in November, and sentenced to death. That decision was only the second time in 20 years that a jury had sentenced a defendant to death in the county.